


Better If I Run

by helsinkibaby



Series: Another Lifetime [4]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: 1-million-words, F/M, Fluff, Het, Romance, canon divergences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 08:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9989372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: After an accident brings back terrible memories, Caitlin decides it's time to move on.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For one million words bingo prompt dance 
> 
> Title from "Another Lifetime" by Reo Speedwagon

The West house didn't look that different to the one she remembered from her other life, from the other Earth. Joe's chair was still in the corner, the same throw sat on the back of the couch. The fireplace sat piled with logs, ready to be lit, and from the stereo in the corner, the dulcet tones of Donny Hathaway floated through the room. 

If Caitlin closed her eyes, she could almost believe that she was back there. 

God, she wanted to believe that she was back there. 

Shaking her head, she wiped at her eyes impatiently, reached for her wine glass and took a long swallow. As she laid it back on the coffee table, she took one last look around, let the images seep into her memory because if today's events had made anything clear to her, it was that she needed to go apartment hunting first thing in the morning, that she never should have stayed here as long as she had. 

It had just been so easy to stay here, in this cosy home filled with people who wanted to helps her. On a new Earth, with its whole new set of history to learn, new people to meet who nonetheless looked so like, behaved so like, the people she'd known and loved and lost, being surrounded by people who cared, people who she didn't have to hide the truth from, had been a godsend. 

Or so she'd thought. 

Because if today's events had proven anything to her, it was that lines were being crossed, feelings were being confused and living with the doppelgänger of her dead lover was the number one culprit of that. 

No, she corrected herself, resolving to at least be honest with herself, even if she couldn't admit this much to anyone else. Her reaction today didn't have anything to do with memories of her Joe, or not much anyhow. Because over the last few months, she'd found herself spending a lot of time in this house with this Earth's Joe and while he looked and sounded so like the man she'd lost, she'd known her Joe well enough that spotting the differences between the two of them had been a piece of cake. Before long, it had been easy for her to differentiate them, see them as the two different men that they were. 

She'd known she was becoming close to him, closer than anyone else - which was to be expected, since Barry and Iris were joined at the hip, and Jesse and Wally were too. Cisco was friendly but seemed to hold her at arm's length, perhaps because he'd been such good friends with this universe's Caitlin, and Harrison Wells... well, perhaps one day she'd be able to look at him and not see EoWells, but it didn't look like happening any time soon. So that left Joe for her to talk to when it was just the two of them in the house, to watch movies and television shows and news broadcasts with, letting him explain all the references she didn't get as she told him how things were different on her Earth. 

All those late night chats and she'd never realised how close they were getting. 

Until today. 

The front door opened behind her, breaking through her thoughts and she wiped at her eyes again, steeling herself for more lies of omission - none of Joe's kids knew about her relationship with him on her Earth. She turned her head, expecting it to be Barry, sure Iris and Wally would still be at STAR Labs and her breath caught in her throat when she saw Joe standing there. 

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, standing up and turning to face him, hands clenched into fists at her side. "You should still be in STAR Labs, you shouldn't be walking around..."

He held up a hand to stop her as he stepped into the room and she didn't miss the drawn look on his face, the thin press of his lips, the way he was holding his body perfectly still, moving stiffly. "Getting that," was all he said and she huffed out a breath of pure impatience.

"Joe-"

"I needed to see you." His quiet words cut across anything she might have been going to say and her breath caught in her throat again, for an entirely different reason, as she saw the look in her eyes. 

She knew that look. 

She'd just never seen it on him before. 

"Things are hazy... real hazy... after that meta-human whammied me." For him, maybe. Caitlin could remember every moment in heart-stopping, bone-chilling detail. "But I remember hearing your voice... telling me not to leave you." 

She looked down because those had been her exact words, said low and fierce, for his ears only. That had been the moment, standing over a gurney in STAR Labs, fighting to save his life, that she'd known. The moment she'd figured out that, while this wasn't the Joe she'd loved in another lifetime, it was the Joe she'd fallen for in this new life and she didn't want to live through it without him. 

Wrapping her arms around her middle, she turned away from him, unable to tell him all that, unable to look at him while she lied. "Seeing you like that... It brought back some memories." A half truth to begin. "Joe West died in my arms once... I'm not so keen on reliving that." 

A soft breath of laughter sounded closer than she'd thought it might. "Ditto." Then, closer still, "Caitlin... is that all it is?" 

His voice shook as he asked the question, shook in a way that couldn't be blamed on injuries and pain and painkillers. It shook with emotion, with fear and with hope and when she turned to look at him, when she turned to answer him, she knew her voice was shaking in the exact same way. 

"No."

A look that could only be classified as relief settled over his features. The next thing she knew, he was reaching out, folding her into his arms. Her head rested against his shoulder as her arms slipped around his waist and she closed her eyes as one of his hands cradled the back of her head. Tears sprang into her eyes, not because it was familiar but because, of all the things she'd dared to let herself hope for, she'd never let herself hope for this. 

"I had to ask," she heard him saying. "All those nights sitting here with you... when I realised how I was feeling, I never thought you would... and if you did, it would be just because of him..."

She shook her head against his shoulder, lifting her head up just enough that she could look into his eyes. "No," she whispered. "Not because of that. Because of you." She sucked in a shaking breath. "I just didn't know that until today." 

"And there I thought you were the smart one." There was a smile on his face to match the one in his voice and his hand moved down her hair to the small of her back, fingers tracing lazy patterns there. But even though he was smiling, she could still see the strain on his face that told her he was still feeling his injuries. 

The woman in her wanted to stay exactly where they were but the doctor in her won out. "Smart enough to know you should be lying down." That did make him grin and she hastened to correct himself. "You know what I mean." 

Joe chuckled, ran a finger down her cheek. "I'm not sitting down," he told her and when she opened her mouth to protest, he shook his head. "I have a beautiful woman in my arms, who I care about, who cares about me. We got Donny on the stereo and my kids got orders not to come home until they hear from me." Caitlin's jaw dropped open in surprise and he moved his hands to bring her into a dance hold, one hand low on her back, her other hand joined with his. "And I admit, if I was able, I'd like to take advantage of all that... but right now? I just want to dance with you." 

There were tears in Caitlin's eyes but this time she knew they were the good kind. "I'd like that," she whispered and as he swayed her slowly in time with the music, she closed her eyes, relaxed into his body and let herself enjoy the moment.


End file.
